Hello Sundari,
My name is Sarah, I’ve been in the spirituality seen since 2009 and got on the Vedanta bus around 2015-16 that started with James- 16-part series, his book and then I emailed with Ted for about 6 months until he stopped teaching and completely vanished.
I have participated in forums throughout the years, but otherwise, read and watched a lot of videos on my own. There is no seeking happening anymore and I’m basically writing to clear up some technical questions because they are subtle and it’s hard to find the answer in literature or video.
So, I copied something you said (below) and I’ve heard numerous times-
Sundari: Hello Sarah, thank you for sharing your spiritual journey. It is clear from your questions and how you write that you are no longer a seeker but a finder. We do know what happened to Ted either, he dropped off the radar for us too.
Sarah: Quote: “The main aim of Self-inquiry is discriminating the non-experiencing witness, the Self/Awareness, from the objects, or not-self. I.e., discriminating between Satya (Awareness) that which is real, never changes and is always present, and Mithya (body/mind/experiencer), that which is only apparently real, meaning not always present and is always changing.”
The question is: since awareness is the light in which mithya appears, but mithya is inert then who is the discriminator here since awareness is not a doer? Is it the experiencing witness or the non-experiencing witness?
Sundari: There is only one Awareness since this is a non-dual reality, there cannot be two “Awarenesses” so there can only be one ‘discriminator’: the non-experiencing witness, or ‘seer’. The point is, what is it seeing/witnessing? The non-experiencing witness is the non-dual Self, but it functions in two ways:
1. As the opaque witness or jiva/individual (saguna brahman – with qualities), which is the mind/ego watching itself and identified with its thoughts/feelings. Isvara is also known as saguna brahman because it operates Maya (the gunas), but unlike the jiva, it is never deluded by them. When tamas and rajas arise in saguna brahman, then Awareness apparently becomes a jiva and is deluded by Maya. Emphasis on ‘apparently’.
2. The transparent witness (without qualities – nirguna brahman) is the Self, pure Awareness. The Self is the impersonal seer that never began or ceases, the all-seeing eye or “I” that sees only itself because there are no objects (experiences/thoughts/feelings) for it to see. It is unconditioned and self-effulgent as there is nothing but itself. Nothing touches the Self.
It would be more appropriate to say that the Self, seeing only itself, is that which knows the seer/witness with reference to the seen, only when Maya is operating. (This is central to your question). The Self-aware Self appears as a seer; but it never actually is a seer, unless seeing refers to its own Self. Whereas, when ignorance is operating the jiva thinks that the seer is different from the seen, the subject and object are different, and the subject/object split caused by the hypnosis of duality is the cause of suffering.
Sarah: Also, technically speaking “who/what” is taking a stand in awareness as awareness?
Sundari: Taking a stand in Awareness is an essential practice in self-inquiry because the nondual teachings of Vedanta must be applied to the life of the jiva to work to remove suffering. It takes as long as it takes, and success depends on how dedicated and how qualified the inquirer is. However, the ‘stander’ and ‘discriminator’ ultimately must go too. Vedanta is a throwaway, it is means to an end, a valid means of knowledge to remove ignorance of your true nature as the Self. Once Self-knowledge actualizes, you no longer need the means because there is no longer a stander or a discriminator. There is only you, the Self. No need to take a stand or discriminate, it is automatic.
But getting to that point is not easy because ignorance is very subtle. Hence it is very important to understand and follow religiously all the steps of self-inquiry. These are outlined very clearly on the website and in James’ books, How to Attain Enlightenment and The Essence of Enlightenment, among others. If the inquirer does not have a thorough grounding in the logic of the teachings the fruit of self-inquiry, freedom from limitation and suffering, will not materialize, it’s that simple.
The practice of taking a stand in Awareness does not give you the experience of Awareness or make you Awareness because you already are Awareness. It negates the idea “I am the jiva.” That is the whole point of self-inquiry. Though the jiva is the Self, the Self is not the jiva. The jiva or Subtle body is conceptual, it is a construct created by Maya (beginningless ignorance).
The jiva identity has an apparent existence, but it is not real, meaning it is not always present and always changing. The conceptual jiva ‘belongs’ to Isvara, it is manufactured by the gunas. Freedom or moksa is freedom from the conceptual jiva, not for it, because it is only the identification with the construct (duality) instead of the Self (nonduality) that is the cause of all suffering.
When the conceptual jiva identity is negated, you have no problem with the person anymore, they are understood to be unreal, and so the mind is no longer conditioned by the gunas. But the inquirer should be mindful here because negating the jiva at first produces a void. Nature abhors a vacuum. Many inquirers get stuck here and depression can set it if they cannot take the next step, which is understanding that the emptiness of the void is an object known by the fullness of you, the Self, the ever-present unconditioned witness. Or, at that time, many inquirers ‘start’ to experience as Awareness and make a big fuss about it even though you have only ever been experiencing as Awareness all along! There is no other experience to be had.
Here is the breakdown of how knowing happens:
1. What is it to know something or not know something, what is knowing actually? Knowing is the modification of the mind/intellect to a stimulus (experience) that produces knowledge of something. Not knowing something is the lack of knowledge, ignorance, which is a kind of knowledge also because it too is a vritti, a thought. You cannot have ignorance without knowledge because ignorance means ignorance OF something and implies a knower.
Both the known and unknown do not apply to the Self because it does not have a mind, so it cannot be a knower/witness in the sense we use that word. How can it be a knower or unknower if there is only itself? What’s to know or not know if all there is, is you? Though the jiva is convinced it knows or doesn’t know things, it is not a knower either because it is not conscious; it is an inert object whose consciousness (ability to know) belongs to the presence of the Self.
But does knowing belong to the Self? Yes and no. Awareness is not possible without the Self, but the Self/Awareness does not know anything because, unlike the mind, it does not modify to experience. It is Self-knowing and always unmodified.
2. The Non-dual Self is limitless and contains all powers, even the power of Maya, which is the power of delusion and limitation. Though Maya never covers the Self because it is an object known to it, when it appears, the manifest creation (duality) appears. Prakriti is the subtlest form of matter the creation is created from, and it appears ‘simultaneously’ in Maya, before the three energies that make up the manifest field of experience, the three gunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas), emerge. Prakriti is reflected Awareness and also does not know anything because it is not modified by the gunas, which have not manifested yet.
3. When the gunas manifest, pure Awareness operating Maya in the ‘role’ of the Creator, meaning Isvara, knows the world – the reflected medium – because Isvara is conscious. Why? Because with the appearance of Maya there is something to be conscious of – an apparent creation, the reflected medium. Isvara (Pure Awareness wielding Maya) is in fact, the only knower.
4. The reflected medium is the Field of Existence in which the jiva perceives, experiences, and works out its karma. The Field and the Jiva seem conscious because the light of Consciousness shines on them. We can infer that the Field is intelligent and must have an intelligent creator because we know that we are conscious, and the Field is intelligently designed. Consciousness makes everything possible, everything depends on it, but Consciousness is unaffected by everything.
Sarah: Also, is it technically incorrect for someone to say, “awareness is aware OF thoughts?”
Sundari: See above. Yes, it is correct because there is no other option seeing as this is a non-dual reality. The Self (non-experiencing witness) impersonally observes the thoughts as fluctuations created by the gunas and does not condition to them; Maya has no effect on the Self. It would be impossible to know anything without the presence of Awareness, yet Awareness does not know anything is a tough one to get one’s head around if we are thinking as a jiva.
It would seem that the jiva (mind) is the lens through which the Self knows (experiences) objects. And that is true up to a point if we take duality into consideration. Duality does have an upside in that it allows the jiva to experience many things, good and bad. There is nothing wrong with duality really, but if we are under its spell and take it to be real, we suffer. In duality, there is always loss and disappointment because we think we need those lovely objects to be happy. And that is not possible, no object can give us wholeness or permanent happiness. Only Self-knowledge can do that.
So, to answer your question, the main point here is to switch perspective and not to think as a jiva but as the Self. Then it makes sense, as explained earlier in the satsang. Do you know that YOU are Awareness, does everything resolve in you, and is that knowledge indirect or direct? Indirect means you know about Awareness – you have knowledge OF Awareness. Direct Self-knowledge never wavers and is not really knowledge anymore. It is simply who you are.
You do not need reminding that you are Self once Self-knowledge has fully obtained, meaning assimilated. The problem here is that people do realize that they are the Self but do not realize that is where the work of self-inquiry begins, not ends. Self-realization is not Self-actualization. Unless the jiva construct is fully understood in light of the gunas, and completed negated as not real, duality (ignorance) is still there and will stand in the way of freedom from suffering.
Sarah: The strange thing is that it seems there’s no issue discriminating and knowing I’m Awareness, but there’s a desire to know the mechanics.
Sundari: The ‘mechanics’ are integral to self-inquiry, as stated above. Vedanta tells you upfront that you are satya, the Self; there is no mystery there. It is actually the most obvious fact. Where all the teaching happens is that Vedanta, like no other teaching, explains what mithya (duality) is, how it creates the jiva program, and why it is the cause of suffering. Freedom from suffering and limitation (moksa) is the ability to discriminate between satya and mithya 100% of the time, without thinking about it. The subject/object split is no more. But as stated and bears repeating, getting there is no easy matter.
Vedanta is a very thorough and progressive methodology that addresses each level of doubt, removing the many layers of ignorance, which assuming qualifications, can be very subtle indeed. The student must not only be qualified, and dedicated, but very importantly, properly taught. You cannot read your way to freedom on your own because preconceived ideas and mental programs will get in the way, it is a given.
Sarah: Also, if you can please clarify is it the “I am” that would usually identify as “I me”, that is now identifying as “I’m awareness”. This is what “feels” right. Although, I don’t know if it’s technically correct.
Sundari: The discrimination between Jiva’s experience of Awareness and the Self’s experience of Awareness is essential because the Self’s experience of itself is qualitatively different from the jiva’s experience of the Self as an object or as objects. As we have said many times, it is one thing to say “I am the Self as the Self and another to say it as the jiva or ego.
This realization may well be a painful moment for inquirers who are very convinced that they are enlightened without knowing that they are only enlightened as a jiva, or as an ego, not as the Self. The subject/object split has not been removed yet, there is still objectification of the Self instead full irrevocable and permanent identification with it.
Sarah: Instead of asking more I’ll leave it at that and maybe you can expand a little for clarification.
Sundari: You asked an important question here; it is good that you wrote in for clarification. It is the assimilation of the answer that is the key. Feel free to write any time.
Much love
Sundari
